Fundraising Down for GOP Dissidents, but Koch and Citizens United Stayed True

Although the threat of default passed last night when enough House lawmakers voted to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, the internal fights within the GOP aren’t over. In fact, after the vote several hardcore Republicans who had been willing to allow a default came out swinging harder — not only at Democrats but at their fellow Republican party members.

Some of their funders, though, weren’t willing to go along with their brass-knuckles strategy, according to new campaign finance filings that cover the days right before the shutdown.

For the past two weeks, we’ve examined the campaign cash behind 20 “dissident” GOP House members deemed by the New York Times to be perpetual thorns in the Republican leadership’s side. New quarterly filings show that, overall, despite a reported bump in fundraising for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), this group of Republicans actually didn’t do particularly well between July 1 and Sept. 30.

But several of the most outspoken Republican House members picked up significant donations from Koch Industries and Citizens United just as the crisis began.

In the first quarter of 2013, the 19 members who are running for re-election to the House (Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) is running for Senate in 2014), raised an average of $135,889. In the second quarter, that increased to $162,974, but in the third quarter, the average take was $104,868 (Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) did not appear to have filed a report yet, so the average includes just 18 members for this quarter only.) Representative Michele Bachmann reported no contributions, but even with her removed from the equation, the remaining 17 raised, on average, about $104,000.

The member who raised the least out of any of these 20 was also one of the loudest voices opposing a deal yesterday — Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). Labrador raised just $45,470 in the third quarter, according to his campaign’s filing.

That’s not to say that being outspoken on the issue necessarily led to closed wallets. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) had the biggest haul among the dissidents in the third quarter: $207,884. He may now need it — business leaders in Michigan are talking of supporting a primary opponent to Amash in 2014.

Amash picked up nine major donations from PACs on Sept. 30, the eve of the shutdown, including $5,000 from Citizens United and $5,000 from Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian advocacy group. On that day he also reported receiving $7,1000 in donations from three fellow members of the group of 20 dissidents. In August, Amash received $1,000 from the Koch Industries corporate PAC, KochPAC.

In total, Koch Industries PAC gave at least $11,500 to six members of this dissident group, including:

A total of $3,500 to Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) in two donations on July 2 and Aug. 6.

The donations are particularly significant because of the company’s support for this group of 20 earlier in the year. Recently Koch Industries denied advocating for the government shutdown that began 16 days ago.

Conservative group Citizens United gave at least $13,500 to four of the dissidents in the third quarter of this year — $5,000 apiece to Amash and DeSantis on Sept. 30 and $2,400 to Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) on Sept. 24 — the day Duncan publicly cheered Cruz’s quasi-filibuster attempt to stop the Senate from considering a budget bill that didn’t defund the Affordable Care Act. The group also gave $1,000 to Gohmert on July 3.

Russ joined the Center in March 2012 as the money-in-politics reporter. His duties include reporting for OpenSecrets Blog and assisting with press inquiries. Russ has a background in investigative journalism, having worked as a reporter for the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, and he spent five years as a newspaper reporter in New Hampshire. He has a degree in political science from Muhlenberg College and a M.A. in journalism and public affairs from American University.

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